On this page: Numenius – Numeria – Numerianus – Numerius

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NUMERIANUS.

god, in whom he beholds the ideas according to which he arranges the world harmoniously, being seized with a desire to create the world. The first god communicates his ideas to the second, without losing them himself, just as we communicate knowledge to one another, without depriving our­ selves of it. (Ibid. xi. 18.) In regard to the relation existing between the third and second god, and to the manner in which they also are to be con­ ceived as one (probably in opposition to the vague duration of matter), no information can be de­ rived from the fragments which have come down to us. [Ch. A. B.]

2. A rhetorician, who lived in the reign of Hadrian, to whom he addressed a consolatory dis­course (Trapafj,v6r)TiK6v) on the death of Antinous. He also wrote Tlepl rtav tjjs Ae|ec«>s trx^/xarcov, XpeuSv (rvvaywyrf, and arguments (virode&eis) to the works of Thucydides and Demosthenes. (Suid. s. v. and Eudoxia.) He was the father of the rhe­torician Alexander, who is hence frequently called AlexanderNumenius. [See Vol. I. p. 123, a.]

NUMERIANUS, M. AURELIUS, the younger of the two sons of the emperor Carus, and his companion in the expedition against the Per­sians, undertaken in A. d. 283. After the death of his father, which happened in the following year, he was, without opposition, acknowledged as joint emperor with his brother Carinus. The idle fears of the army compelled him to abandon all hopes of prosecuting a campaign commenced with so much glory, and of extending the conquests already achieved. For terrified by the mysterious fate of Carus[carus], which they regarded as a direct manifestation of the wrath of heaven, and an evident fulfilment of the ancient prophecy which fixed the river Tigris as the limit of the Roman sway, the soldiers refused to advance. Yielding to their superstitious terrors, Numerianus com­menced a retreat in the very hour of victory, and slowly retraced his steps towards the Thracian Bosporus. During the greater part of the march, which lasted for eight months, he was duly con­fined to his litter by an affection of the eyes, in­duced, it is said, by excessive weeping. After this seclusion had continued for a considerable period, dark reports began to circulate, and the excitement increasing by degrees, at length became so fierce that the soldiers forced their way into the Im­perial tent, and discovered the dead body of their prince. The concealment practised by Arrius Aper, praefect of the praetorians, father-in-law of the deceased, and who had lately acted as his repre­sentative, gave rise to the worst suspicions. He

NUMICIA.

was publicly arraigned of the murder in a military council, held at Chalcedon, and, without being per­mitted to speak in his own defence, was stabbed to the heart by Diocletian, whom the troops had al­ready proclaimed emperor, and who on this occasion acted with a degree of hasty violence strangely at variance with the calmness of his well-regulated mind. [diocletianus.]

The Augustan historian represents Numerianus as a prince remarkable alike for moral and intellec­ tual excellence. He gained universal love and ad­ miration by gentleness of temper, affability of address, and purity of life, while at the same time he bore away the palm in eloquence and poetry from all his contemporaries—virtues and accom­ plishments which shone the more conspicuous and bright when contrasted with the brutal profligacy and savage cruelty of his brother and colleague Carinus[carinus]. (Vopisc. Numerian. ; Aur. Vict. Epit. 38, de Caes. 38 ; Eutrop. ix. 12 ; Zonar. xii. 30.) [W.R.]

COIN OF NUMERIANUS.

NUMERIUS, a praenomen among the Romans of rather rare occurrence. Hence the copyists of munuscripts frequently changed N., its contracted form, into M. Varro says that this praenomen was given to those who were born quickly ; and that women in childbirth were accustomed to pray to a goddess Numeria, who must have been a deity of some importance, as the pontifex mentioned her in the ancient prayers (Var. Fragm. p. 319, Bipont. ; comp. Hartung, Die Religion der Romer, vol. ii. p. 240). As a Roman praenomen the feminine Nu­meria could not be used any more than Marca (Varr. L. L. ix. 55, ed. Miiller). Festus relates that Numerius was never used as a praenomen by any patrician house, till the Fabius, who alone sur­vived after the six and thirty had been slaughtered by the Etruscans, married the wealthy daughter of Otacilius Maleventanus, on the condition that the first child should receive the praenomen of its maternal grandfather, Numerius. (Festus, p. 171 ed. Miiller.)

Numerius also occurs as the gentile name of a few persons :•—

1. numerius, one of the friends of Marius, provided a vessel for him at Ostia, when he was proscribed by Sulla in b.c. 88 (Plut. Mar. 35). Numerius, however, is probably only the praenomen of the friend of Marius.

3. numeriusatticus. [atticus.] NUME'STIUS, NUME'RIUS, was received by Cicero among his friends, upon the recom­mendation of Atticus. (Cic. ad Ait. ii. 20, 22, 24.) NUMPCIA GENS, an ancient patrician house, a member of which, T. NumiciusPriscus, obtained the consulship as early as b. c. 469. priscusis the only cognomen in this gens.